Spring Monitoring Continues...

Yesterday, three of us were able to get in the water and check out the status of our eelgrass restoration sites around Plum Island and Great Gull Islands.

First stop was Great Gull Island (north side) where we had planted as part of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) grant for eelgrass work in eastern Long Island Sound. I am happy to report that the plants looked great, small, but great (photos above). It is always a little shocking to see the plants for the first time in the spring when they still have the diminutive winter growth habit. The last time we observed these plants was in the fall when they were still quite long and waving in the current. Also, during this time of year there is so much macroalgae that it tends to hide the shoots. The prognosis is VERY good for this site and we plan to begin additional plantings soon.

Second stop was the south side of Great Gull where we wanted to check on a restoration site first planted 4 years ago. This site is amazing and the patches have really spread over the last couple years. Despite the great vis and perfect conditions, we were not able to get in the water here. Once on station, we were greeted by approximately 30 seals. Most were pups, but there were enough agitated adults around to keep us on the boat. We are all too familiar with their breaching and nostril snorting to know that we were not welcome here. We’ll have to wait a little longer to dive here, but I am sure that this site is thriving given it’s performance in the past.

The third stop was Plum Island South (Fort Terry) to look for remains of a test planting we had conducted last fall to see if this site could support grass. Unfortunately, after much searching (storms had removed our buoys) we only found a couple shoots. The wave energy and sand movement are apparently too much for our small patches of plants as those that remained were buried under several inches of sand. This very frustrating given that water quality and light are more than adequate at this site. I am optimistic that we can do some additional work here this summer to measure light levels to see how deep grass might survive here. I’m not holding my breath, but I would like to think that this site could work for us.

On a more positive note, our last dive was on the Plum Island North (Radiator Beach) which was another planting associated with the NFWF project. The crew had visited this site a couple weeks ago so I already knew it was doing well, but I wanted to see it for myself. Plants looked great here in 18-22’ of water (above). The area where we planted a large number of patches 1m OC looked great and we are on schedule to begin spring plantings soon to greatly enlarge this area. One interesting observation was the fact that the deepest plots (20-22’) were showing signs of erosion from high currents (below). This area is too deep to be affected by waves, but it appears that this far off shore the plants are outside of the shadow of the nearby point and rock piles that otherwise slow the currents. I don’t believe the currents are limiting; this is just something we need to take into consideration when planning out the planting.

Next field day is planned for Friday…

-ChrisP

It’s been a long winter!

It’s been a very long winter and we are all ready to begin field work. We have spent the winter renovating offices, constructing a new seagrass lab and re-organizing and cleaning out the greenhouse. Now it’s time to get back in the water.

Last Friday marks the first dive of the season for the crew as Kim and Barry went out to check on one of our test planting sites at 67 Steps in Southold, Long Island Sound. The day was unseasonably warm; a perfect day for the first dive of the season. Fortunately, the plants looked great there. Some early season camera issues didn’t allow for pictures of all of the patches, but Kim reported that everything she saw looked really good.

I hope these observations are a sign of things to come as we launch our spring monitoring visits to all of our sites. After a winter like the one we just had, I have concerns over whether or not everything survived; only time will tell whether we had any losses.

For the next week we have to limit our observations to shore dives until the boats are back in the water in early April. Once our boats are back in, we can check on our sites out at Plum and Great Gull Island as well as scout out new spring test planting sites.

Finally, we also need to get into Shinnecock Bay and check on the status of a large-scale seeding effort and experiment that we began last summer. The results of this project could be very exciting…

Check back for more observations in the coming weeks.

-ChrisP

Two out of three ain’t bad!

The weather this week has allowed us to get back out in the field once again as the season races towards winter…we need a few more good weeks to finish out or field work!

On Monday Kim, Ali and I were able to get out to Plum Island and check on the status of plantings there. The story was mostly good with a little bit of not so great news.

I’ll begin with the not so good news…

Our plantings off of Fort Terry on Plum Island (south side of the island) were looking quite battered and beaten from the heavy winds and storms we had over the last week or so (above). It still amazes me that there can be so much erosion and scouring to the bottom in 12 feet of water! I can’t imagine what the waves must have been like! We do still have plenty of plants here, but we lost many and those that remain appear pretty battered. There was also some burial as sand waves passed through the planting area. On another note, we still haven’t been able to find the temperature logger that was attached to a half cement block that was washed away during one of the last storms…maybe this site is too energetic. We are not planning any more plantings this year and instead we will just watch and wait to see how the plants fair through the winter. I REALLY want this site to work as it has so much potential for large-scale planting. For now, I will cross my fingers!

Now onto the good news…

After Fort Terry, we headed east to the north side of Great Gull Island and although the waves were very heavy and the vis was poor, we were could see that the plants looked great here (above). Everywhere I looked, there seemed to be groups of emerald green plants. This year we have really focused on planting in tighter groupings to speed coalescence and I think this is will pay off in the end. At past rock planting sites it has taken approximately three years for coalescence to occur, but I’m hoping that with this spacing this will begin to happen within the second growing season. Then again, we will get less bang for our buck per planting unit, but we’ll see how this works…we can always go back to the original method.

At Great Gull, there was no indication of damage or loss and we even had a few Lacuna egg masses visible on the blades…a good sign. I fully expect this site to fair as well as our plantings on the south side of the island that are doing incredibly well at this point after three years…

Once back in the boat we headed west to the north side of Plum Island to visit the Radiator Beach site, the deepest of our plantings this season (top photo). Here again we were happy to find the plantings doing very well with no signs of loss or damage even at our deepest stations below 20ft! Some of the plants here were shorter than the last time we visited, but this is just the winter growth habit taking over as the temperature drops and the water clarity increases.

Today, we’ll be splitting into two teams: My team, including Neal and Ali will be planting more plants at Great Gull while Steve and Kim will be monitoring the recovery of the natural meadow at Orient Point. We also hope to get in tomorrow and we have a big day planned for Friday with visits to points west in LIS.

-ChrisP

NYC plantings postponed until January…

Some of you may be aware of our efforts to plant eelgrass in Jamaica Bay NYC. It’s a long story, but we are working with NYCDEP and the Gateway Jamaica Bay Unit among others to establish test plantings at three locations near the mouth of the Bay. There was interest in us planting further inside Jamaica, but water quality, temperature and sediment texture appear to be limiting factors here.

After some discussion, we secured permits from both the NYSDEC, Region 2 and Parks to do the plantings earlier this year and we have been looking to schedule plantings for this fall/winter. This pilot planting will hopefully lead the way for a large-scale effort to be funded by NYCDEP…

Although I had hoped to get our plants in by now uncooperative weather and several scheduling conflicts have pushed this work into late January. This late date does not affect the plants as much as it affects the divers. We are fine to plant right through the winter but the water is not very warm as you might imagine.

I will report here when we complete the plantings…

Just be thankful its not you out there diving!

-ChrisP

The Perfect Storm: September 11th 2007

Last fall during a heaving storm we lost much of what was one of the most incredible meadows in the Peconic Estuary. We are used to seeing meadows in the PE slowly wither over time as multiple stressors take their toll and they get smaller and smaller and smaller until they reach a point of no return and don’t come back the next year. In the last 15 years this has happened in Southold Bay, Northwest Harbor, Orient Harbor and many other sites I would rather not mention...

The Orient Point meadow was different though. This large meadow located in the cool clear waters near Plum Gut was one of our favorites and it showed no signs of stress or the slightest inkling of a problem, because up until September 2007, there was no problem.

For almost 10 years we have marveled at this site. From a practical point of view it was easily accessible by boat or truck and provided us with an endless supply of naturally uprooted shoots for transplant stock or seeds for our seeding efforts. In both cases we couldn’t collect 1% of what was available so we were confident that we were not having an impact. Our monthly dives here confirmed this.

Then came September 11th 2007… From my office window at Cedar beach in Southold, 12 miles west, which just happens to share the same exposure as Orient Point, I could see that it was bad, but I didn’t know how bad. I did take note of the fact that the wind never seemed to stop and the waves were crashing on our beach for almost two whole days.

But eventually as it always does, the storm stopped and we got back to the routine field work or early fall, collecting shoots and stockpiling them in our greenhouse for the upcoming restoration season. Everything was good, or so we thought…

It wasn’t until October 16th, when we happened to visit Orient on one of our regular shoot collection missions that we realized something was wrong, very wrong. Steve and Kim had gone out as they often do, but this time the report back was that not only were there no shoots to collect, but even worse, the meadow had vanished! The bottom was naked and only a few plants remained where previously there were more than 500 in a square meter.

When I got the news I was in disbelief. How could this be? What happened? Eventually, I thought about the storm we had in September and pieced together the timeline based on our dive logs. We had been to the site on September 1st and there was NO sign of anything wrong.

A search through the NOAA weather buoy archives provided the proof that I needed. A perfect storm of wind direction, intensity and duration had started on September 11th and ran into the 13th. Average seas in the area were 3-4’ over an 18hr period! Somehow the wind had passes south of Plum Island and north of the Gardiners Island ruins hitting Orient at an oblique angle that proved devastating.

My first dive on the site was on October 18th. When I dropped in I was shocked at what I saw. It looked like someone had come along and cut off all of the shoots, especially in the middle to deeper areas. Despite this devastation I was able to pick out some clues that told the story. One interesting observation was the fact that the rhizome mat was still intact throughout the meadow so the storm was not violent enough to rip the plants out entirely. What appears to have happen was even more bizarre. As I looked closely at what remained I found that the terminal ends of the rhizomes (where the shoot had once been attached) were frayed and rotting. This led me to the conclusion that the waves had actually taken the leaves and either rocked them back and forth and/or twisted them to the point where they simply broke off.

On a more positive note, there were still small clumps of plants next to larger rocks that apparently afforded some protection. Even more surprising was the fact that the inner, shallowest edge appeared to weather the storm better than the deeper areas. I must admit that this part did not make sense. The fact that the rhizome mat and most of the sediments were still there also means that there was the potential for seedling recruitment.

What is the fate of the Orient Point meadow? Is it lost forever? Will it recover?

In a future post I will describe subsequent observations at this site and a project we have recently initiated to track what we hope will be natural recovery over the coming years. As the old saying in ecology goes: “Mother Nature abhors a vacuum”; I just hope she fills it with eelgrass and not algae in this case!

-ChrisP